Karen Wise

Obviously, we often get to think in wedding, but having a apartment with no real dining area, I don’t get as many chances to dream in dinner party, so I was tres excited when Amanda Allen from Newlywish asked if I would want to step in and style their table for the Brooklyn Wedding Crashers event. The challenge: to create a tabletop utilizing some of the many wonderful items on the NewlyWish registry. Since NewlyWish is an online registry for some of the city’s most unique and fabulous boutiques, this was like being a kid in a candy store… in fact, my favorite part was wandering her website and in and out of some of her retailers shops to get ideas and narrow down my options.

Ultimately, when I saw a display of these UNBELIEVABLY adorable MUD bowls in various colors and sizes at Greenhouse on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, the decision was made. I was utterly inspired by Spring chics and, of course, Huevos! (eggs). Rather than use the bowls in the traditional sense, I thought it would be cool to create a colored runner with them and use the vessels for floating some blooms and succulents. A simple solution that could really dress up a brunch or dinner party that you might be having at your home. Plus, it picked up on the playful nature of these gorgeous plates from Bobby Berk Home. The glassware and flatware was from B. Moore Home and the linens and vase for the flowering quintz were also from Greenhouse. And of course, all the fabulous cook ware in the back and the Melangerie genealogy chart are all ALSO available at Newlywish.

In a true spirit of collaboration, the lovely Karen Wise was sweet enough to stop by early on a Sunday morning to take some shots of the table for us. She just adores color and I just love these sweet shots of some of the details and blossoms.

This tabletop made me terribly happy and I do believe, Spring has Sprung… that said, this marks my last official use of the Bird as a motif at Always a Bridesmaid… BUT, please look out for an homage to the Bird at the Wedding in next week’s post “Put a Bird on it”.

The final installment of Sara and Trevor’s stunning wedding. I loved working on this party and I just love the images that Karen Wise captured.
After the ceremony, guests moved upstairs to the roof for cocktails (which included a lovely champagne bar!). Meanwhile, we were busy in the process of transforming the ceremony space into a chic, glamorous dining room for the delectable meal that guests were about to enjoy. The best part of Studio 450 is that it is so very versatile. Sara and Trevor were major foodies, PLUS food gave us a space to play with and incorporate Sara’s Chinese and Trevor’s mid-western roots. Because we knew that the guests would be seated for 5 full courses (plus wine pairings) we spent a lot of time creating table designs that would inspire conversation, a bit of between course mingling and of course, feel as glamorous and elegant as the room itself. We used these awesome round menu cards as both “charger liners” AND as place cards. A lot of time was spent calculating the most enjoyable position for each of the 100 guests in attendance. We had a wine pairing for each course (including a sake), which is a lot of glassware, plus I wanted to keep things airy… I just love the modern drama that these white goblets added to the table top. A tiny detail, but it made the world of difference. When we can, it’s so awesome to do something a little different and special for the bride and groom. Here we brought in a mirror top table for them to sit on, which sat between the four main dining tables. A perfect position for dinner!

For you food lovers out there, here is some of what we served. A salmon sashimi dish followed by a duck carpaccio and an absolutely fabulous beef duo of short ribs and a strip steak. Not pictured was the gorgeous braised miso cod over black rice. yummy. Thanks to Creative Edge for doing such an outstanding job.

The best part of any wedding is seeing people actually interact with the room. It comes alive to see the “design” actually be used. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the food, but even with tons of delicious food, it’s hard to get people motivated after 5 courses and fabulous wine. SO, right when dinner was winding down, we livened things up with a traditional Chinese Lion Dance Troupe. They performed for the crowd, who were completely delighted, and presented the bride and groom with traditional scrolls. After that, everyone was ready to dance and, to facilitate that, we passed desserts on the dancefloor and set up a sweet station. All in all, it was an intimate and unforgettable evening.

The holiday weekend approaches and somehow I find myself alone in the office, reminiscing on wedding weekends past! Since I won’t be blogging for the rest of the weekend, I thought I’d leave you guys with part one of two from one of our favorite weddings of the Season- Sara and Trevor’s Asian fusion wedding celebration as shot by Karen Wise. I had posted Sara’s Inspiration to Actuality with some hints of what the wedding looked like a few weeks ago, but today, I’m breaking out (almost) the whole enchilada.

Sara’s family is originally from China, and so it was very important that we incorporate a full-fledged tea ceremony into their wedding day. The more that we thought about it, the more we felt it would be beneficial to start the day off with the tea ceremony for only their immediate families and the wedding party, then take a short break for guests to rest and change before the more traditionally “Western” ceremony later that evening at Studio 450. We had toyed with using hotel suites for this part of the day, but ultimately decided that their home would be best, and more homey.

Sara started the day in her red Chinese wedding gown which she had custom made. Trevor, as is the custom arrived with his groomsmen in tow ready to play some games and “earn” the right to see his bride. This is one of the most fun and awesome parts of a Chinese tea ceremony (which has different traditions from a Korean or Japanese tea ceremony). First they guys had to “pay” to gain entry to the house and then they had to play a series of games including being fed baby food and an eating contest before Sara actually emerged to greet her groom and the tea ceremony itself would begin. The actual tea ceremony involves many, many, many cups of tea poured and served to the bride’s parents, the groom’s parents and of course, the bride and groom itself. I love being a part of a tea ceremony, first because it’s a very intimate ceremony, and a wonderful chance for the families and close friends to gather together in a more casual (and fun) way and see the coming together of two families. But, secondly, I think that the concept of sharing food and drink is a universal concept and way of saying “welcome” and “thank you”, even if you aren’t a part of that culture.

After the tea ceremony was over, Karen took the couple down to the seaport for a fun little photo shoot. Weren’t they just adorable? Coming up this afternoon, Sara and Trevor ‘s western ceremony and reception.

After posting on our “Inspiration to Reality” shoot for Style Me Pretty, it got me thinking about examples of Inspiration to ACTUALITY. Working with clients on design for their weddings, a lot of the time we are interpreting things that they tell us and say vs. the things that we can see that they, the client, really likes.

For our client Sara, we met multiple times for fittings and tastings and design consultations and every time Sara would be wearing pink. Though she was certain that she wanted no part of pink for her wedding, I made her an inspiration board of images she had liked and the three of us agreed, YES, this was her style.

Here is her inspiration board:

And here is just a glimpse of the “Reality” of the wedding itself as shot by Karen Wise. It’s just a glimpse into this wedding that I’m sure I’ll share soon, but it’s a great example of how making an inspiration board can really help you fine tune what it is that you like and give you an awesome road map for your event designer (or yourself) to create your dream day.

Trying to recover from the holiday weekend. We had a lovely wedding on Friday at the Harold Pratt Mansion, so I’m looking forward to posting some of those pictures. In the meantime, here is some wedding items on and around the web!

Karen Wise launched her new, beautiful wedding photo blog this week! The redesign looks fantastic. Check out some of the images from a wedding she shot recently in Malibu!

If you are a tweet fanatic, you might find yourself going doubly crazy about Bridal Tweet. It’s twitter for weddings!

If you are looking for a cool, personalized shower present for the bride who has it all (or just loves luxurious things) check out these gorgeous personalized robes in the Robeworks wedding collection. They are currently offering complimentary monogramming!

And probably the coolest developement of the week: Amazon officially launched it’s wedding registry! They’ve partnered with Universal Registry to create a feature where you can not only add things to your registry from Amazon, but from any site on the web!

Who We Are

We're Mayra Castillo and Xochitl Gonzalez. We help brides get married with less stress and more style. Have a question for us and need some professional advice? Want to share your wonderful wedding photos? Email Us at blogQs at alwaysabridesmaid dot us